The Ending
by olesia.love
Summary: The problem with stories, Mytho decided, was not precisely that they ended.


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The problem with stories, Mytho decided, was not precisely that they ended. Endings he could appreciate now, after having spent so very long trapped in the story Drosselmeyer had spun so many years ago. In fact, Mytho rather liked stories. Stories made sense – something small from the first act would be pivotal in the third, it was easy to keep track of the main characters, even if their names and roles and faces shifted, and overall there would be an end.

The problem with stories, Mytho decided, was that—

After the story ended, a good ending with a victorious hero and a fulfilled romance and some lessons to have been learned, he and Rue had left the storybook town of Kinkan to start their life together. Their 'and they lived happily ever after,' as endings usually went.

Years passed in the manner that they do, each day feeling endless, and the coming of each season welcome, but the passing of them all sudden and wrought with loss. They were happy for much of that time, Mytho would not deny this; Rue still danced, more for joy now than duty, and Mytho danced with her. As the years went by her hips became wider and her body more that of a woman than the girl-child who'd dressed in feathers to fight for him. She would never be an overly buxom woman, of course, but Mytho had enjoyed the progressing feel of her change, and every day she grew more beautiful.

Years continued to pass, and they traveled. They were unsure of their future, but they had one another, and it was enough. They never heard from Fakir, or from Ahiru, or from anyone else from Kinkan, but they were happy to leave that place behind, to never be reminded of the terrible battle it took to reach their ending.

Conversely, Kinkan never really left them. Sometimes Rue had nightmares about those dark days. She would shake, and tremble, and would whisper where only candlelight could reach that she was terrified that the Raven was not truly dead, and that he would snatch away her happiness with his terrible claws. She would calm under his comforting words, and in the bright sunlight declare herself foolish for having feared so, and would apologize for making him worry. The nightmares never really went away, no matter how far they traveled or how long ago the battle had been, and they only got worse after the first miscarriage. After the second, Rue grew quieter, her laughter never as ready as it had been in their first days of freedom, and whenever Mytho looked too deeply into her eyes he would see her terrible, bone-deep sorrow.

Years continued to pass in the manner that they do, and their happiness seemed so much to ebb and fall away. They no longer traveled, for the harsh conditions were too tiring. Rue hadn't danced in ages, and sometimes when Mytho looked at her he saw love, and sorrow, and an unacknowledged hatred. They never talked about it, this growing disparity between them, and when Rue noticed her hair going gray, she refused to let him see her cry.

She had taken his heart with her when she died, Mytho decided. It explained why nothing ever seemed to hurt him anymore, how utterly uncaring he became to the world around him. It was almost as though he was back at Kinkan again, in those long years before Fakir and Rue became his friends, long before they had even been introduced to the story. He ignored the fact that he would cry without weeping in the candlelight, and he could now dance a solo _pas de deux_ to rival that of Tutu's. Even as they aged, Mytho's limbs had remained strong, and agile, and he could dance as well now as he could all those years ago.

Several seasons passed after Rue, and eventually Mytho returned to Kinkan Town. It had not changed much in his absence, and it was easy for him to find the academy, and all those old houses and haunts he still remembered so clearly.

Fakir, he learned, had passed on long before even Rue. Mytho was not sure if he was being kind, or cruel, to instantly assume that Fakir had drowned.

The lake was quiet in the winter months, and no matter how many times he visited he never saw any birds on the water on those gray mornings. He was sure he was being foolish, thinking that coming back would change anything, but there was nothing else in the world familiar to him, even after all his traveling.

Rue certainly would have called him so, but it would have been almost an endearment, and the thought of it stabbed him more sharply than any sword ever could.

Years passed, and no one questioned Mytho's presence in Kinkan town. He wandered those old, timeless roads and reminisced, and hoped that he was not truly alone. Then again, his hope was all she had been to begin with, wasn't she? Mytho tried to bury his sorrow in dance, and no one ever questioned him when he joined in the classes at the school. It wasn't the same without everyone else there, too, and it only made their absence more pronounced, more painful.

Sometimes Mytho hated, hated, hated everyone: Drosselmeyer, for writing the story; Ahiru, for wanting to fulfill the story; Rue, for wanting to take the story; Fakir, for ending the story.

The problem with stories was not precisely that they ended. Endings, Mytho liked. He adored endings. There was no greater relief than to move through ages and ages of story and have it all wrap up neatly in the end.

The problem, Mytho decided, was that they were true.

Even as he stared out across the Kinkan lake, the same today as it had been centuries before, he hated Fakir most of all for writing the ending of their story.

_And if they have not died, they are still alive today._

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End file.
